“Silent Night” was meant to be simple. Franz Gruber took a text by Joseph Mohr and set it for voice and guitar, and it was first performed on Christmas Eve, 1818 in the village of Oberndorf, near Salzburg, in Austria.

To my thinking, a large part of the beauty of this carol comes precisely because it is so simple. I have tried to reflect that in my setting for violin and piano, which I have uploaded here.

When we lived in Europe we never made it to Oberndorf, but the original St. Nikola parish church is no longer standing anyway. Salzburg itself was one of our favorite places. The Salzburg cathedral below is probably a bit more grandiose than the church where “Silent Night” premiered, but it has an illustrious musical history of its own. Mozart was baptized here, and he served as organist from 1779 to 1781.

​”The First Noel” is a traditional English carol. It has an unusual structure which made arranging it a little difficult. It essentially only has one music phrase. That phrase is repeated twice in the verse, and then it is repeated again in a slightly different form for the chorus. All of this is just fine in a vocal setting where you have different lyrics to distinguish these phrases. It works well enough, that I had never even noticed how repetitive the melody is until I tried to set it for solo piano. Without words, it quickly verges on . . . boring.

My own arrangement has three verses: one with a simple arpeggiated bass, one with altered rhythm and meter, and one that is partially set in a canon. If you try to sing along the words you will find that my technique for avoiding boring was actually to mutilate the traditional structure. I don’t repeat the phrase before the chorus. Each verse is quite a bit shorter than it would have to be if it were sung.

Below is a typical English scene, except for the fact that it’s technically in Scotland. This was the park around the block from where we used to live, with a view of the parish church just across the hedge. I have no doubt that “The First Noel” has been sung there many, many times.​

Be Thou My Vision is one of the world’s most gorgeous traditional hymns. It’s originally Irish, but it’s so beautiful that it’s very well known in most Christian churches, though that sadly doesn’t include the one I belong to.

There are several different English versions of the text. I took liberties with all of them. I wasn’t such a fan of the battle imagery in one verse. (That imagery is fine in a different kind of song, but I don’t think it really fits with this melody.) I also modified the verse about being God’s son. I wrote this for high voice (mine), and I’m not a son.